On October 12, 2024 SWW decided to combine its Annual Meeting and Elections with a party celebrating 40 years of Writers Helping Writers. The event took place at the University of New Mexico’s Continuing Educational event center. In addition to the Executive Board elections, it included an award ceremony for the 2024 Parris Award and the 2024 Writing Contest Awards. The event was broadcast via zoom to those who could not make the party.
We were honored with the presence of three of SWW’s original charter members: Kay “Happy” Shaw, Paula Paul and Parris Afton Bonds. These well-known and multi-published authors congratulated us on our tenacity and success over the past 40 years.
The 2024 Parris Award was presented to Internationally published member Cornelia Gamlem. Cornelia has been a mover and shaker over the past few years. As treasurer she upgraded the accounting systems used by SWW.
A Brief History of SouthWest Writers
By Dan Wetmore
In 1983, Romantic Times magazine sponsored its second annual “Booklovers’ Convention” on the East Coast. As a publicity event, a group of well-known Romance writers on the West Coast hopped aboard a “Love Train” to make the pilgrimmage. Local author Elsie Kreischer greeted the train’s arrival in Albuquerque. Romance writer Jude Deveraux invited Elsie to ride along with them as far as Santa Fe to have tea and discuss writing, but Elsie, with no ready transportation back to Albuquerque, had to demur.
An account of that meeting, published by the Albuquerque Journal, caught the attention of other local authors Georgia McKinney and Michele Lommasson, who invited Elsie to become a part of their group. Shortly after, Lavonne Hampton and Eileen Stanton also joined. The five would met at McKinney’s house, styling themselves the New Mexico Romance Writers (NMRW). They posted a call for more members at a bookstore (most likely the Little Professor Book Center, owned by Norman Zollinger). Happy Shaw, Paula Paul, Madge Harrah & Jude Devereaux responded. Those nine then met at Eileen Stanton’s house to decide whether to form a critique group for those interested in the Romance genre.
At the time, Georgia and Michele were in contact with author Parris Afton Bonds, a co-founder of Romance Writers of America (RWA), and a resident of Hobbs, New Mexico. That prompted the group’s first conference, which attracted 30 attendees. Parris and Jude were the sole speakers. The group decided to become a chapter of RWA, and began by meeting in member’s homes to read their work. By 1984, as that charter organization grew to thirty-five members, Happy, a member of New Life Presbyterian Church, arranged for the group to meet there.
The group began to expand, because 1) the other established writing organization in Albuquerque was restricted to published writers, and 2) NMRW was willing to allow those non-Romance writers to join. The 1984 conference attracted almost 100 writers, and featured the group’s inaugural writing contest.
By 1985, our format had evolved to twice monthly meetings, on the 1st Saturday & 3rd Tuesday. Thursdays’ were originally devoted to critique sessions, but soon shifted Saturdays’ focus on speakers, with critique sessions moving to various members’ houses. By July, the established newsletter had added a “Successes” column.
But around this time, RWA adopted a policy of requiring members to pay both chapter AND national dues. Seeing the unfairness in asking non-Romance writers to pay dues to that national organization, NMRW created an umbrella organization—Southwest Writers Workshop (SWW)—to delineate who would pay how much, for what, and to whom. We soon found ourselves in financial straits, as overhead grew, and the $15 local dues barely covered paper & postage for the two-page newsletter. A New York editor of Romance was persuaded to travel to Albuquerque and host a full-day workshop. With a potluck lunch to keep down costs, the venture netted $1,500, including sixty-five new members, swelling our ranks to a hundred and fifty. By early 1988, that number had risen to five hundred.
In 1989, SWW voted to end its affiliation with RWA, dropping its sub-designation as NMRW in the process, and incorporating as a nonprofit 501c3. An expanded monthly newsletter, dubbed The Southwest Writers’ Sage, started publicizing marketing opportunities. Then, in the early 1990s, Southwest Writers Workshop dropped “Workshop” from its name (but promoted the “W” in “Southwest” to preserve its acronym).
During this time, SWW acquired confederates from other countries, and membership rose to over a thousand. SWW’s annual conference for writers was considered one of the top three in the United States, and many attendees joined the organization to receive the discount conference rate for members. Our conferences morphed into three- and four-day extravaganzas, featuring local and national speakers. Acquiring editors from major publishing houses, and established agents, were flown in from all parts of the country as speakers, and held pitch sessions in which attendees could present their manuscripts. The Storyteller Award was created as the top prize in the annual writing contest and was originally a small pottery “Storyteller” sculpture made by indigenous craftspeople.
Burgeoning logistics prompted SWW to rent office space at Wyoming & Constitution and hire an office manager. The most storied holder of that position was Larry Greenly, who manned the helm for fifteen years. And, for the better part of a decade now, that charge has been ably borne by ReVaH Loring. The need for even more space eventually led to an office relocation near Pennsylvania & Lomas.
Mission-wise, having suitably honed its focus on the art of writing and editting, continued growth dictated that SWW expand its attention to the craft of publishing and marketing, necessitating the assistance (therefore recognition) of published authors. Enter the Parris Award, named after its first recipient, Parris Afton Bonds, who’d readily devoted her time to speak at conferences and general meetings, judged contest entries, and connected SWW with other published authors who later became conference speakers. Thirty-one individuals have been now been recognized with that honor, including seven of the first eleven members (and the owner of that “Little Professor Book Center”)!
In the late ‘90s and early 2000s SWW suffered additional financial setbacks. The tragic events of 9/11 occurred about a week before the 2001 conference. Some editors, speakers, and attendees no longer wished to fly, leaving SWW in a perilous financial situation. Hefty deposits for hotel reservations and meals had already been made, so the conference couldn’t be cancelled.
By 2003 finances reached a crisis level when SWW’s four-day conference didn’t perform well financially. SWW launched an austerity program to cut expenses. With only $1,600 left—six weeks of operating capital—then-president Larry Greenly extricated SWW from the following year’s $35,000 contractual hotel obligation, and found less-expensive office at Comanche & Morris. His wife, Treasurer Edith Greenly, discovered documents showing SWW had vastly overpaid for the lease of office equipment through the years. After some legal wrangling, SWW received a refund which became its nest egg.
In the mid-2000s, things got back on track. With technological innovation, paper notebooks and typewriters were giving way to computers. Meeting topics began to include experts on blogging and social media as SWW rolled with the changes.
The writing community took notice of SWW’s inspiring survival in an era that was not particularly kind to non-profits. In 2008, the Albuquerque Arts Alliance awarded SWW its prestigious Bravo Award as the Outstanding Arts Organization in Albuquerque. By 2010, SWW was nearing $100,000 in capital. Although the meetings and office are headquartered in Albuquerque, the annual book writing contest entry fee—which included a one-year membership in the organization—attracted a worldwide audience, and membership remained near a thousand for a few years. SWW was one of only a few groups nationwide that offered a book-writing competition, and authors were eager to append the title “award winning” to their bio. Since then, literally hundreds of writing organizations and other professional writing companies caught on and now offer this opportunity to make money.
But financial troubles returned in January 2013 when a water line burst in our office space. Many books, files, supplies, furniture were destroyed or damaged. Luckily, most of SWW’s computers survived. After being virtually dead in the water for six weeks, SWW was forced to move to its present location on Carlisle Boulevard. SWW’s expenses from the flood and the resulting move caused an operating cash shortfall. Peggy Herrington proposed an anthology of member writings to replenish the coffers and increase our visibility. The Storyteller’s Anthology was instrumental in doing so.
In 2018, another anthology was composed of response to writing challenges presented by the Sage newsletter, artfully arranged and deftly edited by Kathy Schuit for half a decade. In 2019, with a grant from the City of Albuquerque’s Cultural Affairs office, SWW created and published Kimo Theater: Fact & Folklore, with chapters written by various members and edited by Jacqueline Murray Loring, garnering several awards.
And 2019 saw further innovation, as Jim Tritten, a member of both SWW and the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA), fostered a joint conference to create crossflow between the two organizations.
2020’s CoVID pandemic brought the demise of many small businesses and non-profit organizations after in-person gatherings were banned, but SWW saw an uptick in its membership when the leadership began Zooming their meetings. The format allowed global connection and that year’s writing contest was therapeutic in an unparalleled way, helping authors ride the tide of living together… in isolation.
SWW opened all its meetings via Zoom to the general public. In a win-win scenario, as word of this went out, a number of authors, and others in the publishing industry, contacted us about giving presentations—free of charge—to help them market their work. SWW enhanced its visibility by scheduling special Zoom events with authors from around the country and beyond. A poetry reading by five distinguished Irish authors in Galway was attended online by more than a hundred viewers.
By the close of 2021, SWW had grown back to over 400 members. About 85% still live in New Mexico, but the other 15% comes from all over the world, including Germany, England, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. SWW began holding in-person meetings and workshops again in 2022, but retained the Zoom component to accommodate those unable to attend in person.
We come from good root stock. The charter members of SouthWest Writers include best-selling authors across multiple genres such as Romance author Parris Afton Bonds, Mystery writers Joanna Blaylock and Kay Lewis Shaw, Children’s author Elsie Karr Kreischer, Western author Tony Hillerman, Humorist Eileen Stanton and Historical Fiction writer Paula Paul.
And our branches continue to bear fruit, as we expand our outreach, inviting others to find the rewards—salubrious & financial—in writing. In 2023, Jim Tritten spearheaded SWW’s collaboration with New Mexico Arts to offer a publishing opportunity to New Mexico veterans and their families. The resulting anthology, Holes in Our Hearts, has received awards from the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards, New Mexico & National Press Women, and the Military Writers Society of America. In 2024, Jim and SWW partnered with a professional memoirist to offer that same client base additional tools to tell their stories.
So let’s look at some numbers.
Nearly forty-one years as an entity. Thousands in audience served by over nine hundred twice-a-month gatherings at three primary locations. At least thirty-five annual conferences hosted. Numerous contests judging and recognizing books & short writings. Nine anthologies published in the past ten years, with another one in final edit and two more in development. All girded by support from four office locations, by forty-one boards; with seventeen different Presidents, to include a record seven years by Larry Greenly, followed closely by Rob Spiegel & Rose Marie Kern at five apiece—all of whom have held multiple additional positions throughout the years; and individuals filling four hundred and eighty-one seats in an aggregate sixty-one other positions over the organization’s lifetime.
But while numbers give a story magnitude, they don’t tell the story.
The story… is of a group finding an unfilled niche; resolutely dedicated to enriching the lives of those who would hear, and those who would tell; asserting continued relevance despite a diminishing interest in the written word; exhibiting resilience in the face of financial, social and public health challenges; and adapting to an ever-changing technological landscape, which most recently includes the wild card of Artificial Intelligence, which—unlike dis-interest in the written word (a threat to the craft)—is a potential threat to the crafter.
Yet if zeal and fortitude merit reward, it’s likely that the efforts of SouthWest Writers will continue to be blessed for decades to come.
Let me conclude by apologizing that this brief overview doesn’t begin to scratch the surface in giving recognition to everyone who has brought us to this day’s celebration, but SWW is grateful to all who has given countless hours to selflessly provide those around them with example, instruction and encouragement.
